Comments on the Readings

In general, I try to not comment on the readings as I feel that there is enough content on the internet to blog about. However, after doing the readings, I am left with some comments that I feel are worth sharing.

In the reading "The Liberal Media Exposed," one of the proofs is quite tenuous. For example, the authors wish to use the fact that "John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention...and found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry..." to prove that the media is liberal. Correct me if I am wrong, but if there was support for Bush, something would be amiss, but support for Kerry by journalists at the DNC should be expected. My issues are: 1) The reporters at the Democratic National Convention may have asked for that assignment based on their personal preference. They were reporting the DNC instead of the RNC because they are Democrats and are more interested in it than the RNC. Therefore, if a similar survey was taken at the RNC, the results would probably be the same, which would prove nothing, other than that reporters tend to be assigned to and report on things they are already predisposed to. This does not prove that the media is liberal. 2) Just because they favor Kerry does not mean that they are liberal and if they are liberal, that does not mean that their reporting will contain a liberal slant. They may associate themselves with a liberal philosophy, but they may not indicate so in their reporting. It is for these 2 reasons that I view this statistic as a weak proof.

In the reading "Advertising Trends in 2010," on page 14, the authors write "One nontrivial benefit of record spending and record airings this cycle is that many voters, whether they like it or not, were undoubtedly exposed to more campaign information than in previous election cycles and therefore were more likely to make informed choices at the ballot box..." My problem is, that watching ads and being exposed to political advertisements does not make one well informed. On the contrary, being saturated and possibly over-saturated by political ads may cause people to tune out which would make them less informed voters, proving that too many ads can be detrimental to society at large. 

Feel free to disagree but those are my thoughts on the readings.